Unemployment rate rises in all counties

Unemployment rates increased in all of Tennessee’s 95 counties in June after every county saw unemployment rate shrinkage in May, according to data released Thursday by the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development.

“We’ve seen this type of increase in the June county unemployment rates every years since the state started keeping records in 1976,” said TDLWD Commissioner Burns Phillips.

Phillips said June is typically the month when recent high school and college graduates enter the workforce and have yet to find employment, adding to the jobless count across the state.

Wilson County’s unemployment rate in June was 3.3 percent, up from 2.2 in May and 2.9 percent in April. In June 2016, the county’s unemployment rate was 4.1 percent.

Wilson County had the third-lowest unemployment rate behind Davidson and Williamson counties with 3.1 and 3.2 percent unemployment rates, respectively. Sumner, Cheatham and Rutherford counties followed with a 3.4 unemployment rate.

Wilson County’s rate in June represented 2,300 unemployed workers compared to a 69,330-person workforce and does not include those who did not file with the labor department or no longer receive benefits.

Lebanon’s rate for June rose to 3.9 percent from 3.3 percent in May. The city’s rate represented 560 unemployed workers compared to a 14,490-person labor force.

Mt. Juliet’s rate for May landed at 3.2 percent, a 1 percent decrease from April. The rate represented 550 unemployed workers compared to a 17,270-person work force.

The Nashville-Murfreesboro metropolitan area, which includes Wilson County, came in at 3.3 percent. The rate represented 33,340 unemployed workers compared to a just more than one million-person workforce.

The national unemployment rate for June was 4.4 percent, a 0.1 percent increase from May. The national rate represents more than 6.9 million unemployed workers compared to a workforce of about 160 million people.